OF THE VEDAS, 
77 
We learn from the old Norse Eddas of Iceland that the 
Teutonic Aryans carried away from the original home the 
same belief in the origin of the universe. The first poem in 
the first part of the Elder Edda, which contains the oldest 
traditions of the Grermanic races, is the Valupsa, or wisdom 
of Vala. Yala was a prophetess and thus describes the 
creation of the world : — 
' ' I command the devout attention of all noble souls, 
Of all the high and the low of the race of Heimdall, 
I tell the doings of the All Father, 
In the most ancient sagas which come to my mind." 
" There was an age in which Ymir Hved, 
When was no sea, nor shore, nor salt waves ; 
No earth below, nor heaven above, 
No yawning abyss and no grassy land." 
" Till the sons of Bors lifted the dome of heaven 
And created the vast Midgard (earth) below ; 
When the sun of the south rose above the mountains 
And green grasses made the ground verdant." 
(2) Creation e/c tSjv ovtcov, or creation from existing matter. 
(1) " Hiranyagarbha arose in the beginning; he was 
the one born lord of things existing. He established the 
earth and this sky : to what god shall we ofEer our oblation ? 
(2) He who gives breath, who gives strength, whose command 
all (even) the gods reverence, whose shadow is immortality, 
whose shadow is death : to what god shall we offer our 
oblation ? (3) Who by his might became the sole king of the 
breathing and winking world, who is the lord of this two- 
footed and four-footed (creation) : to what god shall we ofPer 
our oblation ? (4) Whose greatness these snowy mountains, 
and the sea with the rasa (river) declare, of whom these 
snowy regions, of whom they are the arms : to what god 
shall we offer our oblation ? (5) By whom the sky is fiery 
and the earth fixed, by whom the firmament and the heaven 
were established, who in the atmosphere is the measurer of 
